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Are you willing to play Warcraft for hours each day for P10,000 a month?

There’s an active discussion over Istorya.net on the advertisement by a Cebu company seeking players of World of Warcraft. Here’s a link to my earlier post containing a copy of the ad. Migs Paraz earlier asked in PinoyTechBlog: “Is it all that good, or is it a “Third world MMOG sweatshop?” Read for yourself but I’m really interested in pursuing this story. I hope to do legwork for the story after I finish my final paper for an online course I’m taking.

Early in the discussion (which is conducted in Cebuano so I’m providing translations), a poster asked how much the players would be earning.

One poster then said that the rate was P50 for eight hours of playing the game. Various other posters then criticized the rate with many saying it’s not even enough for fare to and from the office as well as meals. The rate, though, is higher than what a poster described as ‘pakan-on ug pan init unya paimnon ug Sparkle‘ (served hot bread and Sparkle.)

An official of the company then posted a clarification on the rates. He said that people were misinformed and that the P50 was a daily allowance for those still under training. The allowance also depends on their evaluation. He said that the training period doesn’t last longer than two weeks.

One poster, who worked for the company, complained on the rates and the way things were being run. He told people “sa gusto mosuway, suway lang mo para makatilaw pod mo.” (For those who want to try, go ahead so that you’ll get a taste of the life there.)

The company official, presumably the CEO as he said so in the post, then warned the poster that his “wrongful accusations” may get him in trouble. He said: “an attorney is with me right now and he mentioned what you are doing may be illegal.”

He said that the gamers signed non-disclosure agreements and by disclosing these things, they are violating the agreement. He warned: “We haven’t pursued any such cases but we may have to since one of the reasons why we wanted trainees to sign a non disclosure agreement is so that they don’t disclose damaging misinformed information such as this which can easily be misinterpreted.”

The official then said that they are moving to a new building and that they have gamers who earn up to P10,000 a month.

A student then clarified that those who were raising complaints did not understand that they were on a “test period” and that what they were getting were allowance. The student said he stopped working for the company because it was already final exams time.

It would be good if this company does really well so that it can pay its workers competitive rates. The CEO listed in their website is Brian Lim. I don’t know if he’s the same guy I interviewed a year or two back who integrated a computer into his car using off-the-shelf parts. He did the integration really well.

[…] These professional gamers for hire are tasked to build characters or acquire items and then are sold to other gamers in the west. A lucrative business indeed. They’re apparently paying Php10,000 per player per month. That’s enough playing hours to build a good character or acquire enough items that could fetch as much as $2,000 or more. […]